Floating City by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online Page A

forest of cryptomeria. Hearing the beating of the bell was what was important.
    He listened, tears streaming down his cheeks, even after the beating had ceased, straining for each echo as it rose up the night-black canyon of steel and glass, dying away in the tungsten- and antimony-tinged air high above Tokyo.
    When at last the final reverberation had played itself out in the confines of the room, he turned from the window, which he had thrown open just before midnight. As he did so, the octopus on his back and sides rippled its eight arms. This elaborate irizumi, the traditional, highly charged tattoo of the Yakuza, spread over his torso and upper arms. The octopus was a great brown creature, eyes full of violent sorrow. It was garlanded with sakura —cherry blossoms—as if it had emerged from a hillside in Nara, rather than from the depths of the ocean. Four of the octopus’s arms were engaged in a struggle with a fierce, bearded warrior wielding a battle ax; the remaining four arms erotically embraced a magnificent seminude woman. The dual nature of the octopus was rampant in Japanese legend; its sexual potency was believed to be unparalleled. And why not? With eight arms, it must surely be a better lover than a man.
    The octopus in motion, Chosa faced the Plexiglas case placed against one otherwise bare wall. In it resided a life-size wax replica of Marilyn Monroe in the one pose from The Seven Year Itch that had passed from mere fame into genuine legend. Legs spread, hands splayed between her legs, a startled moue on her face, this Marilyn mannequin wore the same dress the real one had worn when stopping on a subway grate while hot air billowed it up around her sensational thighs. Chosa had paid through the nose for it. In his replica, a small motor blew the air upward, the dress eternally waving like the flag at the grave of the Unknown Soldier.
    “What is it you see in her?”
    The unmistakable voice turned him slowly around until he was looking into the exquisite face of Naohiro Ushiba, Daijin of MITI. Ushiba gazed with obvious distaste at the image of Marilyn. “Everything about her is so... exaggerated, as gross as an American cross-dresser.” He made a parody of the moue Marilyn used to seduce the world, making Chosa laugh.
    The sound irritated Ushiba further. “It’s like a corruption of the soul, this image.”
    Chosa shrugged. “Whose soul? And what is your definition of corruption?”
    Ushiba glowered at Chosa. “I fear the dark night of the American psyche is imprinting itself on you. You know my definition of corruption: American work ethic, American hedonism, American shortsightedness, American elitism.”
    Chosa smiled. “So dour, Naohiro. So different from your ebullient act in front of the press.” Chosa gestured at the cityscape outside the windows. “Look out there. We are the land of the empty symbol.” He pointed to the Marilyn replica. “Now that you have a degree of celebrity you should be more sympathetic. This is just another symbol—and quite a fascinating one. Who better than we to understand it?”
    Chosa was an impressive man. His wide face and chunky body appeared attached without the need for a neck, the beach-ball head smashed cruelly down between massive shoulders.
    The irizumi made him seem larger, more commanding than he might otherwise be. The force of the tattooing, the hyperimaginative covering of his flesh in colored inks, served the same purpose as a mask might on someone with less personality. Ushiba, who knew him better than anyone else, was of the belief that its facade allowed Chosa the freedom to employ chimerical personality shifts without the leash of conscience or remorse, as if the creatures crawling over him might be responsible for this behavior and not Chosa himself.
    “You make me sick,” Ushiba said, but his glance briefly touched the spot on Chosa’s flesh where beast and woman joined most intimately. “These bastard Americans...” He seemed to